allow users to choose effect of changing icon keyword

Titleallow users to choose effect of changing icon keyword

Short, concise description of the ideaWhen changing the keyword of an icon, ask user whether to continue using that icon on the old posts & comments with that keyword, or to replace it with a new icon or the default icon, as appropriate.

and seemed to receive some interest, so I'm expanding it and submitting it separately.

Right now, if I change the keyword of an icon, one of two things happens: (1) If no icon now has the old keyword, all uses of the old keyword now appear as the default icon. (2) If a new icon now has the old keyword, all uses of the old keyword now appear as the new icon.

(1) is rarely desired, but (2) sometimes is. In any case, the user should be asked whether this behavior is what they want.

Examples:

(A) I have an icon called "pie." Later, I acquire other food icons and decide I want to reorganize my icon keywords to "food: pie", "food: cake", etc., and get rid of "pie" as a separate keyword.

When I change the "pie" keyword to "food: pie", I should be asked whether I want to keep using this icon for all prior uses of "pie", or whether I want those prior uses to revert to my default icon.

(An alternative phrasing could be asking whether to rename "pie" to "food: pie", but this breaks the parallel with the next case and may not make clear the consequences of not renaming.)

(B) Later, I find a different icon of pie and decide to make it my "food: pie" icon. However, in past comments I've told people that the pie in my icon was an apple pie that I made personally. Those comments would no longer make sense with my new "food: pie" icon, which shows a lemon meringue pie.

When I label a new icon with "food: pie", I should be asked whether I want to replace all prior uses of this keyword with the new icon or only use the new icon for future uses of this keyword.

Optional: users could only be asked these questions if the icon has been used.

An ordered list of benefits

Increase ability to manage icons for those who care.

Preserve conversational context.

An ordered list of problems/issues involved

Could be confusing if not carefully worded and tested.

Optional suggestion of only asking if icon has been used once may be too database-intensive.